Tapas Turns Us All Into Angry Birds

As mentioned before, I’m a bit of a quirky individual, and one of the ‘preferences’ I have, much to the enjoyment of my coworkers, is to avoid tapas restaurants.

These are tapas – the serving size of a single slice of a personal pan pizza.

It would be convenient to blame the Tapas restaurants themselves, forcing people to handle food with their grubby hands and then pass it along to the next person, infecting them with the zombie or Chuck Norris virus, but I repeat myself. (Seriously, you can hit that man with a bat and he just keeps on coming. It’s only if you destroy his brain that he can be stopped.) If Typhoid Mary was transported to the present day, I have not doubt she would find the nearest Tapas restaurant and get to work.

Nor is my issue the size of their plates. I liked the munchkins from the Wizard of OZ, they didn’t terrify my, unlike some little brothers that shall remain nameless (AHEM). It’s completely legitimate to be terrified of the Alien from the Sigourney Weaver movie of the same name, and that fear is not equatable to the representatives of the esteemed lollipop guild. Now if the tapas plates had alien mouthcocks with teeth, then I would be disturbed; but I think that’s fair.

My issue with tapas is the sharing, because everyone acts like a thin girl on a first date at a tapas restaurant. They all sit around saying, “What, more? No, I possibly couldn’t, I’m dainty and satisfied with the seven peas and four slices of bread that I’ve already consumed. Also, I’ll have ice cubes for dessert.” But meanwhile they’re thinking, “God, just get me home so I can eat a box of Oreos, a 16 oz steak, and a gallon of milk – Mama’s gotta eat!”

So I, like my compatriots, nibble at wonderfully delicious morsels, all the while evaluating how much everyone else has eaten and whether or not I can grab that last bacon wrapped date from communal plate. And then when the bill comes, there’s always at least one asshole that has to point out that I had three more coconut shrimps than everyone else, so being a Beluga whale, I should probably pony up a few extra dollars.

This is a Beluga whale, and it is prettier than you.

Sorry for mixing animals in that last sentence, but the Beluga whale is known as “the pony of the seas.” (It’s not, but you should teach your kids that, it’ll be funny in 12th grade animalology class, when their teacher calls them a “numb nut” – that’s building character!)

My coworkers think this is hilarious and suggested tapas for lunch once every two months. Until two months ago, when they suggested it and the new guy said, “Ugg. I hate tapas. There’s never enough food and people always get ornery about the check.”

Moral of the story:

A) You’re never really alone.
B) The new guy is obviously the second most awesome person to ever live.
c) You need to spend more time reading about Beluga whales, since you’re a numb nut and had no idea what one was.